STEVE SEBELIUS: Cortez Masto wins, but just barely

Former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid always knew, whether you win an election by a single vote, or whether you win by a million, you still win.

He learned that lesson in 1974, when he lost a race for U.S. Senate to Paul Laxalt by just 624 votes.

And he learned it again in 1998, when he squeaked out the narrowest of victories over John Ensign by just 401 votes.

That close call with political death changed everything for Reid, who revamped his staff, took over the moribund Nevada Democratic Party and began building the vaunted Reid Machine that’s still running to this day.

Now, Reid’s hand-picked successor, Catherine Cortez Masto, has had her own brush with political death, ironically enough in a race against Paul Laxalt’s grandson, ex-Attorney General Adam Laxalt.

Her victory — by just less than 8,000 votes, or less than 1 percentage point — is the narrowest win in Nevada among presidential, senatorial or gubernatorial candidates since Reid’s in 1998.

And while it’s reason for Cortez Masto and her team to celebrate, it’s also cause for soul-searching. How did it happen?

Reid’s 1998 contest and Cortez Masto’s 2022 race are not precisely comparable. John Ensign, a congressman at the time, was a telegenic and spirited campaigner. Adam Laxalt, it must be said, is no John Ensign.

In fact, Cortez Masto faced a much tougher opponent six years ago in Joe Heck, who was more disciplined and less doctrinaire than Laxalt, and won every county in the state save for Clark.

When Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced, Heck distanced himself from Trump. Laxalt cozied up to Trump at every opportunity and won his endorsement.

In fact, it may have been Laxalt’s robust defense of Trump’s stolen election claims in 2020 that ultimately doomed his candidacy, even if he ultimately acknowledged Biden’s election. But Cortez Masto connected Trump’s false claims (and Laxalt’s advocacy) to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol quite effectively.

And Laxalt was given to odd utterances, such as calling Roe v. Wade “a joke” (in reference to its gossamer legal underpinnings), or lamenting Jan. 6 as overblown or his overwrought and underwhelming plea in a TV ad to “save America!” (Sorry about that, America.)

In Laxalt’s valedictory, he quoted from St. Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, perhaps unwittingly comparing his losing Senate campaign to the yearslong work of Christianity’s first great evangelist.

Despite all that, however, Laxalt came within nearly 8,000 votes of defeating Cortez Masto, out of more than 1 million cast.

On the other side of the ledger, it must also be said that Cortez Masto is no Harry Reid. He was single-mindedly obsessed with politics and utterly ruthless in its practice. By contrast, she’s a low-key, wonky grinder who prefers working behind the scenes rather than behind the leader’s podium on the Senate floor.

And the landscape is certainly different in 2022 than it was in 1998. The Nevada Democratic Party is once again vestigial, having been taken over by activists, some affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America. The party was not a factor in the 2022 race.

The Reid Machine, on the other hand, still exists as a sort of party-in-exile, and while Democrats lost the governor’s mansion, they retained control of the Legislature, three of six constitutional offices and all three of Southern Nevada’s congressional seats. If there are changes to be made, they’re more likely to be minor adjustments than the wholesale overhauls of Reid’s day.

Still, it’s unusual to have a political machine without an elected official at its head, although no natural successor to Reid has yet emerged. (That may be due, in part, to the fact that there will never be another person like Reid.) Cortez Masto, the natural choice given that she’s the highest-ranking Democrat in Nevada and does not have to worry about re-election for another six years, seems uninterested in that all-consuming role, preferring legislative and constituent work instead.

The dynamics of 2022 — an unpopular president, record inflation, high gasoline prices, a revanchist battle over abortion rights and a Republican Party split over the political worship of its former president — may not ever recur. But that shouldn’t mean Democrats should forget that the 2022 top-of-the-ticket victory was far, far closer than they should be sanguine about. This is a political history that no Democrat wants to see repeated. Because winning by a million is a lot better than winning by one.

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.